Nanoparticles are widely used for their optical properties. In their use, nanoparticles are known to be excellent scatterers of light and other EMR.
Gold nanoparticles have been used to absorb EMR to create a rise in their temperature which can subsequently be measured through resistance change in their surrounding medium. Such gold nanoparticles can be the basis of potential microbolometer improvement [Nikoobakht, B., May 27, 2010; US Patent Application Publication US 2010/0127172 A1]. In such systems, however, no direct use is made of the electrical properties of the plasmon's electron cloud at the surface of the nanoparticles, and the electric field the plasmon's electron cloud creates. Electrons are not detected directly as current in such systems.
Nanoparticles have also been attached to the surface of silicon solar cells for the purposes of scattering (re-radiating) the incident EMR from the Sun into the optical modes of a photovoltaic silicon detector, for the purposes of increasing absorption of EMR in the silicon to create an electric current flow, such as is the standard process in optoelectronic photodetection devices [Fonash, S. J., 2010; ‘Solar Cell Device Physics’, Elsevier].
Indeed, there is considerable global interest at present in the emerging fields of plasmonics, photonic crystals and so called meta-materials [Wehrspohn, R. B., Kitzerow, H.-S., and Busch, K., 2008; ‘Nanophotonic Materials: Photonic Crystals, Plasmonics, and Metamaterials’, Wiley-VCH.]. Throughout the development of these materials, the focus has been on the manipulation of their optical and non-linear optical properties for a variety of optical applications.